Bigfork High School misses AYP goal

For the first time, a Bigfork school has failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress.

Prior to this year, Bigfork schools were some of the only schools in the Flathead Valley that had not failed to make AYP, Bigfork High School Prinicipal Matt Jensen told the Bigfork School Board.

AYP measures a school's progress in meeting accountability goals from the federal No Child Left Behind Act. If a school fails to reach a given year's target in even one category, the whole school fails AYP.

Bigfork High School was 9 percent shy of reaching the target of 68 percent proficiency in math in all student groups.

The school exceeded the target percentages in all other applicable categories, including reading proficiency, reading participation, math participation and graduation rate.

Students take a criterion referenced test, or CRT, in their sophomore year.

Their proficiency and participation determine whether a school makes AYP.

Failing to make AYP means a school is under observation. If it continues to not make progress, it can go through a mandatory restructure.

Each year the target scores increase. More Bigfork High School students were proficient in math in 2008 than 2009, at 66 percent rather than this year's 59 percent, but they did not meet the target that year either.

The school still made AYP with Safe Harbor, meaning the school had been successful in years past and saw a decrease of less than 10 percent from the prior year.

What's important, though, is finding a solution, Superintendent Russ Kinzer said at a recent school board meeting.

"Making excuses is what we don't want to do," Kinzer said. "What we want to do is find out why and then put a number of corrective measures in place."

Kinzer has commissioned the school's math teachers to analyze the AYP results.

The school has already been working on its math program. Several years ago, school officials began to notice that students did well in English and reading, but math scores were never as high, Kinzer said.

"We think maybe the algebra program was not rigorous enough at lower grade levels," Kinzer said.

As a result, the school district has been looking at moving concepts earlier in students' education so they are not trying to get caught up at the high school level, he said.

The district was also able to adopt new math textbooks, or new versions of their previous textbooks, through a process at the end of the last school year.

Grades five through eight have new materials, but kindergarten through fourth grade are still deciding on new texts.

At the Sept. 16 school board meeting, Kinzer said the problem is more than math - it's curriculum-wide.

Over the summer, Kinzer and principals at the high school and middle/elementary school worked to restructure teams of teachers comprised of grades kindgergarten through 12.

The teams are tasked with identifying from grade 12 down what students need to know to be successful, figuring out how to assess those skills and coming up with the best practices to achieve them.

Kinzer said assessing curriculum is a complex project because it involves considering state standards, what teachers grade to, text books and state assessments.

Elementary School Principal Jackie Boshka said she anticipates the process will take all year, though some ideas are being implemented throughout the process.

Board members asked Boshka to come back to the next meeting, scheduled for Oct. 14, with an idea of where students are struggling most in math based on what questions were most commonly missed on the CRT.

Both the elementary school and middle school grades made AYP in 2009. Their percent proficiency in math exceeded the required 68 percent by 12 percent or more.